Ernst Schmidt (Author)

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Ernst Schmidt (born October 12, 1924 in Essen ; died December 16, 2009 there ) was a German local historian.

Life

Ernst Schmidt was the son of a farrier from Borbeck . His youth was shaped by National Socialism in Germany. Schmidt was an enthusiastic Hitler Youth . After attending elementary school , he did a commercial apprenticeship with the Essener Lokalanzeiger and the Essener Nationalzeitung . Then he was committed to the Reich Labor Service . As a Wehrmacht soldier , he was deployed on the Eastern Front and was captured by the Soviets in 1945. There he attended the Antifa school and was convinced of communism . After his release from captivity , he joined the KPD , which was banned in 1956 . Because he supported the goals of the banned KPD by publishing the newspaper “Der Ruhrbote”, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison and released on probation after six months. In 1968 he became a member of the newly founded DKP . In the 1980s he began to work on his own political history and received his doctorate in 1982 at the University of Bremen with his contributions to a history from below in the subject of history. In 1982 he resigned from the DKP and the VVN . In 1986 he became a member of the SPD . He supported the visit programs initiated by the city of Essen for former Jewish residents of Essen and the forced laborers imprisoned in Essen and, as a contemporary witness, was a conversation partner in the schools.

Ernst-Schmidt-Platz in front of the House of Essen History (2015)

Schmidt built a private archive on Essen's history in the 19th and 20th centuries with numerous documents, photographs and scientific publications from the Essen workers' movement and the National Socialist era. The collection was later incorporated into the city archive as the Ernst Schmidt Archive .

He refused to be awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. The city of Essen named the place where the House of Essen History and the City Archives are located after him in 2011.

Fonts (selection)

  • Back then in Feldstrasse . Essen: Klartext, 2008
  • From public enemy to city historian . Essen: Klartext, 1998
  • Food reminds . Essen: Klartext, 1991
  • with Frank Bajohr ; Heidi Behrens-Cobet: Free schools: a forgotten educational alternative . Essen: Klartext-Verlag 1986
  • Lights in the Dark: Resistance u. Persecution in Essen 1933–1945: experiences, reports, research, conversations . Frankfurt am Main: Röderberg-Verlag, 1980

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Frank Stenglein: The unforgotten city historian , in: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , October 13, 2014, p. 4
  2. ↑ a b c d Ernst Schmidt , among youth 1918–1945 , NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German city historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 2009
Place of death eat